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Articles about Queens and Glendale! |
'Outer Borough' Finally Attracts The 'In' Crowd By GAY JERVEY IN the final year of the HBO hit series ''Sex and the City,'' the character Carrie Bradshaw and her Prada-touting friends experienced a number of firsts: Charlotte converted to Judaism and settled into a happy marriage with Harry; Samantha let a man into her heart; and Carrie finally saw the Eiffel Tower and, it appears, snagged Mr. Big -- maybe for good. And as for Miranda, she not only married Steve but also did something that at the time seemed even more shocking. Lured by a house with a backyard, high ceilings and a working fireplace, she moved (gasp) to Brooklyn. When she broke the news, a wide-eyed Carrie nearly tripped over her Manolo Blahniks. Her response: ''That is information that I can't handle.'' The self-defined hipsters who have always considered Manhattan the center of the universe have gradually incorporated Brooklyn into their map of the world. But Queens? Now, that would be going too far. What is it about Queens, a borough that has been home for millions, that brings out the real estate snob in so many upwardly mobile New Yorkers? First of all, there is the very resilient ''All In The Family'' factor. ''Everybody thinks of Queens as the home of Archie Bunker and not much else,'' said Michael Carfagna, an independent real estate broker who lives and works in Queens. ''For years we have had that stigma. We really have.'' Molly Sheridan, a publishing consultant who has lived in Forest Hills for more than 30 years, agreed. ''People think of it as being all working class, blue collar -- far away and foreign -- kind of a no-man's land,'' she said. Yet with real estate in Brooklyn and Manhattan so breathtakingly expensive, that image may crumble among the Manhattanites who couldn't find their way to Astoria or Kew Gardens without Mapquest.com. Like the character Miranda of ''Sex in the City,'' Deborah Knudsen, 44, an advertising executive, made a move in October that would have once been inconceivable to her. With her husband, Eric, 35, a copy manager at Macy's, she exchanged a charming but relatively small -- approximately 550 square feet -- West Village apartment for a 1,150-square-foot, six-room apartment, complete with a dining room and garden view, in the heart of the historic district in Jackson Heights, Queens. ''People were saying, 'I can't believe that you are moving to Queens,''' Ms. Knudsen said. '''I simply can't believe it!' They were very surprised.'' |
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